What my Corrected King James Version is not

There is a legend that Thomas Jefferson used to take a knife and cut out verses of the Bible that he didn’t like. The results of his labor are known through the Smithsonian Museum. He doubted the veracity of the biblical authors, even though he believed Christ to be a great moral teacher. Jefferson was not the only one to cut things out of his Bible that caused him problems. Martin Luther was famous for wanting to relocate the epistle of James to an appendix. He did manage to find grounded logic by which the could remove the books of the Maccabees from his Old Testament when they were invoked against his problems with indulgences. Most of Protestantism has followed him in maintaining Bibles with an Old Testament handed over strictly by Jewish scribes.

While I admire Jefferson’s and Luther’s sincerity, I disagree with their premise. Jefferson and Luther decided what God must have said, then shaped their canon to match. I would rather determine what the canon is and use that to determine what God must have said.

I believe that The Holy Spirit has aided and guided the process of biblical development. I’m uncomfortable with some images of inspiration in the popular sphere. The best description I’ve heard for how inspiration works comes from Plato’s dialog Ion. In that, Plato (through the caricature of Socrates) explains that inspiration is like a magnet, and that once it touches a ring of iron, the ring becomes magnetic as well. I believe that God, through the course of living events, touches some of us. When some, particularly the Apostles and Prophets, are in their closest communication with God, their thoughts become divine. When those thoughts come out on ink and paper, that ink and paper becomes (in a sense) embedded with divine thoughts. To borrow an analogy from another great thinker, it is like a map of a great sea. The map is not the ocean. It can’t get me wet. I can’t sail my boat on it. But if I want to know the safest and best places to get wet or the most efficient way to sail my boat, the map is a better guide than a swimming pool.

I really understand where Jefferson and Luther were coming from. I really like bacon with my breakfast, and there was a point in my life that I really had to take some time and put the study in on that issue. After all, the Bible does say, “And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.” (Leviticus 11:7) and unlike Jefferson, I was unwilling to just cut that verse out because it was inconvenient. I wanted to know what God actually said, not what I wanted God to have said.

Bacon is far from the only problem the biblical text gives us, though. I’m an egalitarian. Sometimes I get asked, “How do you deal with 1 Timothy 2:12?” I have an answer for that, but I’m not going down every rabbit hole in this essay. The relevant question here is not “How do you deal with it,” but “What does it say in your version?” And in the Corrected King James, 1 Timothy 2:12 says, “for I do not allow a woman to teach, or to be assuming over the man; but let her remain in stillness.” So however I deal with it, it’s not like that. I still have to deal with 1 Timothy 2:12, and complementarians still have to deal with Romans 16:1 and Romans 16:7. (And I would like to point out that there are actually complementarians who have changed their Bibles in those places.)

I hope this dispels the fear that some could have regarding my project. My aim is more in line with Erasmus than Jefferson. However poorly he got started, Erasmus set out to understand what the Bible said in the original language. He came under fire when he corrected the existing Latin Vulgate to exclude the Three Heavenly Witnesses in 1 John 5:7 & 8. Even though I am a trinitarian, my source text has the same deficiency as Erasmus’s early attempts. So I appeal to other texts and to philosophy to explain The Holy Trinity.

So if I still end up having texts that are difficult for me and not having the clarity of text I might hope for, what is the point of creating a Corrected King James Bible? The point is to get just a little bit closer to the magnet of Christ and the Prophets and the Apostles. The point is to bring my ear just a few inches closer to God’s lips so I can hear him that much more clearly. I think that the King James translators got it wrong in 1 John 5:7-8. I think that they put words in the Bible that were never supposed to be there, no matter how convenient they are for me. So I’m taking those words out so that I can more clearly hear the words that God has placed in the Bible.

My goal is to provide a single translation of God’s Word according to the sources that prayer and study has convinced me is the best primary source. Ultimately, I would like to translate all of these myself as well, but in the meantime The Corrected King James gives me a standardized English text to read and study from.

The Complete New Testament and Whole Bible are available on Amazon.

Along the way, I have published individual versions of the texts I have used.

• Corrected King James Version: Matthew According to the Hebrew: Currently in the Second Edition
• Corrected King James Version Mark

• Corrected King James Version Luke and Acts
• Corrected King James: Collected Works of John the Apostle
• The New Testament From the Syriac: English Translation by James Murdock Parallel Syriac from the Peshitto

• Nestorian Script
• Serto Script
• Estrangelo Script

I am currently in the process of updating a second edition of Mark, Luke, and the Collected Works of John. Once that is finished, I will release a second edition of the Complete New Testament. Then I want to adjust the chapter and verse divisions of the Old Testament to match the sources I use, and I will release a second edition of the Whole Bible.

Translation Principles

For those of you who are a little more familiar with the terminology of Bible translation, I’m going to start out with this: I’m trying for a formal equivalence, single source, and non-scholarly translation of the Holy Scriptures.

Formal equivalence is probably the hardest part of this to explain to the uninitiated. The two directions in terms of translation style are formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. This has to do with how you translate a given phrase from one language to another. I like to think of this in terms of a scale of one to ten, with the smaller numbers being more dynamic, the bigger numbers more formal equivalence. So if you take the Hebrew sentence, “נֹחַ בֶּן־חֲמֵשׁ מֵאֹות שָׁנָה” a 1 might translate it as “Noah was 500.” A 3 might translate as “Noah was 500 years old.” A 5 might translate as “Noah was five hundred years old.” A 7 would translate it as “Noah was a son five hundred years.” A 9 would translate it as “Noah [was] a son five hundred years.” A 10 would be an interlinear along the lines of “Noah (נֹחַ) [was] a son (בֶּן) five (חֲמֵשׁ) hundred (מֵאֹות) years (שָׁנָה).” Using this scale, I aim to be somewhere in the five or six range.

Single source is a little easier to understand. In every place where I make a translation of God’s Holy and Inspired Word from a source language into English, or an interpretation of any sort, I assume one single source to be correct and preserved in absolute and trust it above all others. However, I do not use a single source to the exclusion of other sources input. I assume one source to be correct, but other versions or translations or interpretations which agree with that source can be used to extract nuance or clarity not found in the original. In Book 18 of City of God, Augustine of Hippo discusses some of these same matters in relation to the Hebrew Scriptures compared to the Septuagint.

In selecting a source, I’m going to start by saying I try to select God’s source. To explain this, I need to start out in a way that, even to those who agree with me in believing there is a supernatural realm, might sound superstitious, but trust me, where I land I’ll be pretty concrete and down to earth.

The Holy Word of God is God’s Own Self. It is immortally immutable. It has no beginning, no end, and no alteration. It forms what we know as reality, although it is more real that anything we can experience with taste, touch, hearing, sight, or smell. This immortally immutable word both formed the world, and entered the world. It entered the world in flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. In parallel to this (because to this word, there is neither before nor after nor during) it entered this world through the tongue and hand and ear and eye and nose of those whom God would call to deliver a message. In special cases, God would enter through his word in a special way, which he would through his purpose preserve in his way through his people. In such a case, each transcriber would, in a sense, be freshly inspired to copy what he had before himself. The result is that there are copies that accurately reflect what God says. The power of each new transcription comes from the immortally immutable Word of God which is God’s Own Self, transferred from the previous copy, and so on. I think for some of it, it might be helpful to read Plato’s Ion. His rings are in one aspect a well description, with the single exception that in the case of a transcription each new transcription holds all the power of the previous.

I must be careful when I say this to say what I mean. I do not exclude the possibility of mistakes. However, I do deny the ability of these mistakes to compound over time. Mistakes will be limited in scope, and in the cases of these inspired copies, they will be of a nature akin to a typo. It is not these copies which I seek to understand and connect with. It is the immortally immutable Word of God which is God’s Own Self I hope to connect to.

Now here is where things start to get tricky, so try to follow me. This theory does not exclude the possibility that a translation might be preferred over the original. In some cases, for example, I might choose a Greek translation of an Old Testament book. If I do choose something odd or obscure, I’ll try to say why.

It does mean that the source I use will have to represent a source which has been available through men of God (as opposed to the craft of men.) The source should also represent, for the most part, what people have understood God to have said. If I have a translation that radically alters some tenant of the Christian faith, I’d be concerned about my own salvation, and check it very carefully before choose to an alternate translation, switch to another version, or some more drastic action.

As to the non-scholarly in my translation principles, I’m a layman. I didn’t go to school for this. I’m doing this for one simple reason: I intend to strengthen my own connection to God through a deeper understanding of his Holy Word. For example, I’m not capitalizing pronouns unless other grammar rules require it. (You may already have noticed this, dear reader.) It has been variously explained to me that the reason people capitalize pronouns in relation to deity is because it is what they used to do for kings and such, or because they wish to emphasize the difference between God and others. In the original text, there is no difference between “he” when referred to God and men, so I will not render it differently. I live in the USA, we don’t have a king, and I use a lowercase “he” in relation to the president, so I guess that means I should use a lowercase for God as well.

I am not trying to say I’m “better” than any other. If anything, I’m trying to inspire others to seek original language studies of the scriptures because I believe pretty much anyone can do it. God is a great guy, and the closer you get to his original words, the better off you’ll be in understanding his purpose for your life, in my opinion.

Can the Comma Johanneum be Inspired?

In the First Epistle of John, there’s a short section called Comma Johanneum that is highly disputed. It’s only half a verse. This little fragment is not original to the Greek text of the epistle. It grew up in the Latin tradition. In the post-printing press world, the text was imported into some editions of the Greek text.

For a long time, that settled the question for me. I am a Trinitarian, but I am also an evidentialist. I don’t have a problem with the text as an examination of theology, yet at the same time I am as certain that it isn’t a part of the epistle as anyone can be about any ancient text. So when one of my text-criticism heros took on a couple of King James Onlyists in a debate on the Comma, I only listened as a tiny show of support for James Snapp. His opponents did surprisingly well, for King James Onlyists. I recognize that being the smartest King James Onlyist isn’t a high bar, and they didn’t clear it by very much. Still, I’m not used to King James Onlyists bringing valid history and theology to a debate on scripture. Mr. Snapp successfully showed that the text of the Comma was not a part of the original Greek, and instead grew up in the Latin tradition.

Mike Hollner and Mike Ferrando did bring a whole different angle to the question, though. One of the points that they brought up was the persecution of trinitarians under the Vandals in 484. Among other things, the Vandals cut the tongues out of some trinitarians who quoted the Comma in their defense of their faith. Once the trinitarians escaped to friendly territory they were able to speak.

This miracle is recorded, among other places, in the History of the Vandal Persecution, which the Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity database has cataloged. The time between the events and the recording of the events is such that I’m inclined to believe that this happened. What does it mean, though? 

One of my projects this year is to pull together my reasons for believing that the canon is open. This does raise an important question: is the canon open enough to allow for the addition of text into existing documents? The Comma isn’t the only place this question is relevant. I have long since come to the conclusion that the end of Mark is inspired, regardless of whether it was original to Mark’s pen or another. It’s also going to be a relevant question for sections like the story of the woman caught in adultery.

One of the things that is frustrating about the Comma for me is that it’s not included in any of the classical creeds either. I have a hard time getting too worked up on the filioque controversy. I accept the Athanasian Creed, which undoubtedly contains the filioque. It’s hard for me to get worked up that it’s added to the Nicene or missing without it when I have that section either way. I don’t have that with the Comma, though. If the Comma didn’t come from John, where did it come from? There’s not another document that seems to have the text without thinking that it comes from John.

I find the miracle of the people at Carthage to be interesting and compelling in the direction of accepting the Comma as scripture. But it doesn’t convince me that the text flows from John’s pen. So coming back to the original question, is it possible for this little fragment to be inspired separate from the piece it’s added to?

I honestly don’t know what to think about that. I’ve always preferred going back to the original language of the document. I allow for the first generation or two of theologians to edit and organize the text, but mostly I want to see the text in the original language, saying the things that the original human author intended to say. This is very clearly an example that does not do that.

Might the Latin text of 1 John be an inspired translation? Or might there be another document that the Latin fathers were drawing from, mistakenly thinking that the text came from John? I don’t know. But I’m very interested in hearing other people’s opinion on the subject.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

I don’t know who that guy in blue was, but it wasn’t Superman. And whoever was dressed up in black sure wasn’t Batman. And whatever they fight was supposed to be, it certainly wasn’t Batman vs. Superman.

This movie left a lot to be desired in a lot of ways, but for just one second I want to focus on the use of established characters that hold a particular place in our psyche. Superman is supposed to stand for hope and Batman is supposed to stand for justice. When an established canon, like an animated series or a long running comic book, plays with these ideas, it better be to make a point. When a series opens with Superman being cynical and Batman being fascist, I no longer feel like these are the characters I signed up for. 

If this movie had been named “Ultraman vs. The Knight Bat” and character names adjusted accordingly with no other story changes, then I would have considered this an interesting examination of beloved franchise tropes and how they may or may not reflect real humanity, but I wasn’t signing up for that under the given title. That’s why this movie failed me. 

With that said, there is another aspect of Batman vs. Superman that does interest me that this movie doesn’t explore. Batman represents a lot of things, but among them Bruce Wane is mostly just a guy in a bullet proof vest that has honed his entirely human skills to a point of perfection. Superman is an alien that was handed indestructibility and flight just for having good genetics. There is a kind of battle between them in our culture over the souls of mankind: would we rather worship and adore those that work hard and gain strength, or those that are headed power by virtue if where they’re born and who their parents are? To this, mankind has spoken: the vast majority of superheroes are like Superman and get their powers from an accident or birthright and very few work on lifting weights or studying at the library. There are certainly exceptions, and there are mitigated examples of superheroes that straddle the gap and have both the benefit of cosmic accident and doubled efforts, but if we were to allow every superhero to be weighted by popularity and put on a scale representing what percentage of the time they used developed skills and what percentage they used accidental skills, I think that scale would weigh pretty heavily towards the accidental side. I wonder what that says about us humans as a race.

The Problem With Doctrine

Does your church have a Statement of Faith? Doctrinal Declaration? Articles of Definition? There are so many different terms for them, I’m not sure I could find them all, but is there a list of statements that define the epistemology of your church, school, or parachurch organization? I kind of hope there is. I also hope there’s a way to amend it. 

A statement of this sort is kind of important for a faith community. What the community believes and expects is important for group identity and setting expectations for new members. There are a lot of standard documents that a church could draw from. Some are relatively long and some are relatively short. It’s possible to adopt a standard one, but amend it for the needs or particulars of belief of a given community.

When there’s a disagreement between parishioners or pastors about how to incorporate a biblical or rational teaching into the life of the congregation, having a statement to fall back on is important. The problem is, any statement of faith or doctrinal position could be wrong. Even if it’s not wrong, it might be applied wrongly. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a statement of faith, it just means that I’m not going to engage in a “who holds to the doctrinal position better” competition. 

This is where positions like King James Onlyism come from. The doctrine of preservation of scripture gets combined with the doctrine of perspicuity of scripture in a particular way. The doctrine of preservation means, to the King James Onlyist, that whatever scripture was inspired, a photocopy-equivalent text must currently exist. The doctrine of perspicuity registers in their mind as meaning that it must have been written in a language that they understand. A little simple emotional algebra, and very quickly it becomes clear that the King James Version must be the only true and right version of the Bible.

This line of thinking shatters under the slightest pressure of the simplest questions. What about other languages? What about when the most popular and oldest translation of a Bible in another language contradicts with the King James? What about the various printings and editions of the King James? What about translations that are older than the King James and were once more popular? I’m not saying that King James Onlyists don’t have answers to these. I am saying that their answers, when fully explored, lead to contradictions and inconsistencies. 

There’s also a relevant discussion regarding the original or current understanding of these terms. Because these particular cases are given as limited examples rather than exhaustive examples, I’m not even going to bother researching whether that’s what the original authors of the statements might have meant. For the sake of the conversation, it might be the original meaning and it might not. Similarly, it might be how the terms are used in contemporary scholastic literature and it might not be. That’s not the point I’m making today.

I’m going to say something that will end up being controversial but shouldn’t be: I want to agree with the authors of the statement of faith in everything they got right, and disagree with the authors of the authors of the statement of faith in everything they got wrong.

One of the biggest problems with statements of faith within the church is that salvation is often tied to some of the declarations in a statement of faith, and which ones are usually not clearly delineated. In a nutshell, that’s the problem with connecting a person’s salvation with accepting a certain set of facts: it makes letting go of those facts much harder. Even if all the evidence is there that the way these ideas is understood is wrong or disconnected with the way the original authors intended, if their salvation is at stake it’s going to be that much harder to let go.

This is one of the things that I’ve seen lead to deconstruction and deconversion. I’ve met people that were firmly convinced of King James Onlyism, and upon learning that English wasn’t even a language during the first century they completely lost all faith in Jesus and the church. It’s easy to be critical of their reaction, expecting them to understand which elements are more important and which are less. However, when you look at some statements of faith, for example the Statement of Faith of the King James Bible Baptist Church, there’s nothing that clearly distinguishes between the importance of “Thus the Bible (KJV) is inerrant and without mistakes,” and “We believe that according to the ‘eternal purpose’ of God salvation in the divine reckoning is always ‘by grace through faith,’ and rests upon the basis of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.” If someone is truly saved by their faith, and this is a statement of that faith, how is the average person really supposed to separate out which parts contribute to salvation and which don’t? 

Let’s focus in on the idea of “preservation” for now. A lot of statements of faith will say something about the preservation of scripture. What is that really supposed to mean? That leads into questions of authorial intent vs reader response for a start. Certainly, the King James translators were well aware of variant readings and were aware that the original autographs had not survived to their day. In their preface, the King James translators discuss the possibility of finding better manuscripts and text critical techniques. Certainly, when they say that the scriptures were preserved in the original languages they mean something different than what a newly converted millennial understands after working in a print shop for ten years. The problem is, some pastors are also millennials that worked in print shops for ten years, and they preach their understanding of preservation from their pulpits. It doesn’t help foster communication with them to tell their congregation that this understanding is the wrong view of preservation. But the harder part is, I’m not convinced that the King James Translators meant the same thing I do when I say “preservation.”

I also don’t find the argument over who is closer to the original author of the statement fruitful. It’s not always clear who first said it. Even when we can, sometimes the first generation recognized that it can only be a kind of analogy or hyperbole. Even physical concepts have this problem: the epicurean atom lends little more than its name to modern physics: the epicurean idea literally referred to something that cannot be divided, and splitting the atom is now a major source of power in some places. So I’m not interested in the argument about who has the most original understanding of any word, be that “atom” or “preservation.” I’m interested in whose idea is better supported by the evidence.

There are some ideas of these terms that conform closer to the available evidence, and there are ideas about those which fall further from the available evidence. Sometimes a summary explanation that has problems is still useful for studies in the field. My favorite example is the ball-and-stick models of molecules in many American highschools: no particle physicist or chemist thinks that these accurately describe chemical bonds and often they can give particular examples where these models actually fail to explain a particular chemical composition. But sometimes good enough is good enough for the task at hand. In preservation, we really are grading on a curve with all the other ancient texts in the set we’re grading. The biblical texts are in a relatively small class of books that set the top of that curve. I struggle to find a more intuitive way to describe this than “These texts are among the best preserved in the ancient world.”

For me, this isn’t a doctrine, though. This is based on the evidence. We have more manuscripts, spread over a wider area, with less time between the authorship and the oldest manuscripts than the vast majority of ancient texts. Everything that a text critic is going to say, “I wish we had…” for ancient texts, there are going to be vanishingly rare examples where another text is closer to the wish than the biblical text: we wish we had manuscripts closer to the time of authorship, but very few ancient documents have manuscripts closer to the time of authorship than New Testament documents, and even many Old Testament books fair better than books they are contemporary with; we wish we had manuscripts distributed over a wider area, but very few ancient books have a wider distribution than biblical books; we wish the manuscripts were easier to read, but rarely does an ancient book have easier to read manuscripts than the Bible.

Moving on from preservation to infallibility, I’m going to say something that will end up being controversial but shouldn’t be: I want to agree with the biblical authors in everything they got right, and disagree with the biblical authors in everything they got wrong. Even more than that, I want to agree with biblical interpretations that are right, and disagree with the interpretations that are wrong, regardless of how close or distant they are from the original authorial intent or any particular statement of faith. The biblical texts have been used and recognized by theologians as special and giving insight about God and morality, however we parse that. Professional historians have found the biblical histories to be at the top end of the reliability curve for the era they were written in and describing. Archeology continues to confirm the biblical take on things just as often as the most reliable histories of similar distance from the events described. There are still things that don’t fit neatly into the historical reconstruction, though: the census numbers in biblical texts seem to have been exaggerated (as they likely were in other texts as well) and some characters within the text seem to represent a conglomeration of bad guys rather than an actual individual. (For example, Darius the Mede.)

The text of the Bible is as true as it proves to be. If there’s something that’s factually incorrect in either the Bible or even just simply someone’s understanding of the Bible, God (who is Truth itself) isn’t going to be impressed at the people who stand up for those errors. This leads into what feels like a big difference between the way I approach doctrines and many others approach doctrines. So often, when I see the way some people approach doctrines, they seem to think that God is some kind of bureaucrat that they need to bribe and flatter in order to get their paperwork to Heaven processed correctly. This is why we have ever increasing magnitudes to our vocabulary about God: he’s great, then he’s powerful, then he’s omnipotent, then omnipotent to the greatest extent, and so on. I, in contrast, see God as a fundamental force, like Gravity or Magnetism. I could no more improve God’s mood towards me by flattering him than I could Gravity by calling it great or Magnetism by calling it powerful. I don’t think that God is actually going to be impressed that I call his word “infallible” or offended that I examine the history of it. He is Truth: he’ll be “impressed” that I seek him even when it means abandoning a long treasured doctrine of men. (Matthew 15:9)

With all that said about why we shouldn’t hold a doctrinal definition or statement of faith too highly, I still think that they’re important. It’s easy to fall into the extreme camps of either “The Statement of Faith is all important!” or “The Statement of Faith is useless!” A statement of faith serves a purpose. It defines where the current study has led the pastor, congregation, denomination, or para-church organization. We see similar ideas in other fields of deep study. A medical research facility is going to have an approved methodology for seeking new treatments, for example. This will, in a sense, be based on a particular understanding of The Scientific Method. When new information comes in that a different understanding of The Scientific Method works better, they’ll abandon their existing understanding for the better one. The reason this is so easy for them is that they have attached a healthy level of importance to these beliefs: they’re as true as the evidence indicates, they’re as important as the evidence indicates, they’re not impressing some bureaucrat named “Health,” they serve Health as what it really is according to the evidence, and so on. I wish we could do the same with religious doctrines.

Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

My oldest son is a Bigfoot believer. Over spring break, we took a day to go to The North American Bigfoot Museum. When we were there, Cliff Barackman from the HBO Max show Finding Bigfoot was there. It is one of my son’s favorite shows. My son got an autographed picture and we took a photo of them together for his Facebook page. 

The Bigfoot museum is pretty impressive. If you’re ever in the area, you should definitely check it out. Even if, like me, you aren’t a believer. Seeing the museum reminded me of the movie that convinced me that Bigfoot doesn’t exist.

The North American Bigfoot Museum is much more professional and convincing than the North American Museum of Anthropology in Harry and the Hendersons, but something in my mind made that connection so I made some time to watch Harry and the Hendersons with my son. At the end of the movie, a family of Sasquatches reveal themselves right in front of the Henderson family and retreat into the woods with Harry.

At ten years old, when I first saw this movie, this caused a shift in the way I thought about the creature. In primitive stories (like the first ten chapters of Genesis) it is common to see a species treated as though it is a character. The serpent in Genesis 3 is a prime example. Adam himself is another example, though we lose some of that in translation. This is basically how I thought of Bigfoot before watching Harry and his family appear and then disappear.

I have to say, as a non-believer, the evidence for Bigfoot is surprisingly competent. But part of the realization that led to me rejecting Bigfoot was the realization that there must be baby Bigfoot. I grew up on thirty acres in the woods, with family that owned hundreds of acres. The number of times that a friend or family member had actually seen a grown bear was vanishingly rare. They’re shy enough and smart enough to avoid being seen. Bear cubs, in contrast, are curious and playful. (Also, if you see them, turn around. If you accidentally get between the cub and the mother, it will not go well for you.)

The existence of baby Bigfeet means two things. First, it means playful and curious young that are going to be last apt to hide than their grown counterparts. Second, it means a population large enough that males and females keep finding each other regularly. 

There’s an episode of Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World that summarizes my skepticism towards this particular cryptid very well. But for today, I want to play What-If. What if Bigfoot is real, and we just haven’t found one yet?

One thing that I would say is that Bigfoot is probably a hominid cousin to humanity. Even though hundreds of samples of suspected Bigfoot hair has been sent for testing, it always comes back as a known animal, usually bear or bobcat or human. This means that Bigfoot DNA needs to be close enough to ours that it tests as human. Most likely, Bigfoot would need to be close enough to have the chromosome two fusion. You can see this in their foot shape as well. Their big toe points forward like our big toe. Chimps have a big toe that points to the side. Bigfoot would have to be close enough to human that when we did find a Bigfoot skull or whatever, it was mistaken for human.

I’ve been in the woods and I know how animals hide. I do believe that Bigfoot could hide from casual observers. It’s much harder to believe that Bigfoot has been dodging cameras and professional Bigfoot seekers all this time. I think the available evidence is against it, but only just barely.

Accepting My Son

2016

Pet Store Manager: “Hello, Sir.”

Me: “Hello.”

Manager: “Is that your son over there?”

Me: “Yep. That’s him.”

Manager: “He sure is cute.”

Me: “I’m awful proud of him.”

Manager: “So, the two of you have been here about two hours. Is that right?”

Me: “Yeah. That sounds right. If you want, we can go.”

Manager: steps between me and the exit and raises his arms a little. “Nononono, let’s not be too hasty here. We’re just talking here.”

Me: “Uh… okay…”

Manager: “How old is he?”

Me: “Eleven.”

Manager: “Are you sure?”

Me: “I know he looks younger…”

Manager: “Sorry, I was just hoping he was sixteen.”

Me: “I’m sorry, what?”

Manager: “We have a policy against hiring people that are under sixteen.”

Me: “I’m sorry, what?”

Manager: “I can tell he has some difficulties, so I knew I’d have to talk to a parent or guardian to get the paperwork filled out to hire him.”

Me: “I’m sorry, what?”

Manager: “So… are you looking for a job?”

Me: “I work in a factory. We’re just in town on vacation. My wife and daughter are at the science playground down at the other end of the mall. My son got bored and he likes animals.”

Manager: “Well I’m very glad you decided to stop in. How much do they pay you at the factory? I might be able to compete.”

Me: “But we’re not looking to move, and it is a four hour drive from home to here.”

Manager: “Not even to spend all day with your son?”

Me: “I’m listening.”

Manager: “I’m going to be straight with you: I saw the two of you come in on the cameras. I’ve been kinda watching as I did my paperwork. We’ve sold more animals and accessories since the two of you arrived than we normally do all week. Your son is a natural salesman. I understand he’s special needs. Whatever he needs, we could accommodate: extra bathroom breaks, limited mobility, if he can’t read that’s fine we can make sure he has assistance. Anything it takes, we can do.”

Me: “He is still in diapers.”

Manager: “That’s fine. However often you need to change him, we can accommodate that. Anything to replicate these kinds of sales regularly.”

Me: “I assure you, it’s a coincidence. My son is not a salesman.”

Son: speaking to another family “Oh this puppy is so cute! He wants to go home with you!”

Me: “Okay, that’s not what he’s been doing this whole time.”

---

One Week Later at Church

Me: “I’m here to pick up Carson.”

Nursery Attendant: “I’m sorry, we had a parent complain that Carson doesn’t belong in the nursery, and we sent him to the fourth grade room.”

Me: “Okay.” In the fourth grade room: “I’m here to pick up Carson.”

Fourth Grade Attendant: “Who?”

Me: “My son. The nursery said they sent him here.”

Attendant: “Oh! Did you know he’s still in diapers?”

Me: “Yes. That’s why he’s normally in the nursery. They’re set up to handle diapers.”

Attendant: “Well, we aren’t. So when he got here, one of the parents complained that he smelled funny and we had to find somewhere else to put him.”

Me: “So where is he?”

Attendant: “We had one of the highschoolers take him.”

Me: “I didn’t get a notice that he needed to be changed.”

Attendant: “They only send those notes in the nursery.”

Me: “Okay. He has diapers his size in the nursery that we keep stocked. Did you get one of those?”

Attendant: “Oh, we don’t change diapers.”

Me: “So he’s been in a dirty diaper for an hour? And no one made any attempt to contact me?”

Attendant: “Well if you would just teach him to use the bathroom…”

Me: “Excuse me?! My son has a genetic condition. It is a miracle that he can walk and talk as well as he can. It’s not his fault that he’s not able to use the bathroom.”

Attendant: “Well it’s not my fault either.”

Me: “But you had the chance to notify me that he needed changed, and you didn’t. He’s relying on you.”

Attendant: “I’m sorry, we’re just not set up for people like him here.”

Me: “Where is he?”

Attendant: “We sent him to one of the empty classrooms with one of the highschoolers.”

---

John 9:1-3 Corrected King James Version

And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

---

My oldest has a rare genetic condition called Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome. It’s a partial deletion on the short arm of the fourth chromosome. That’s why it’s also known as 4P minus. My son is a particularly mild case, and because of that we didn’t have a diagnosis until he was five years old.

Because he was our first child, we didn’t know how difficult we had it. We didn’t understand the complaints other parents would lob in our direction. Until our son was four, because of his digestive issues from his genetic condition, he needed to be fed every two hours, twenty four hours per day. We discovered that his natural rhythm better accommodated eating every hour and a half.

We attended the church of my wife’s youth until our son was three years old. At that point, we were told that our son was too disruptive for the main service, so we needed to take him to the nursery. The next week, the nursery attendant had not fed him while he was in the nursery. Because of that, he was extremely weak. We took him immediately to the emergency room, where they gave him IV nutrients over night. It’s a good thing we live in a world where IV nutrients exist: we would have lost our son that day without them. 

The nursery attendant’s response was direct: “I can’t hold him to feed him. If he can’t hold his own bottle, then you need to keep him with you during church.” That was the last Sunday we were in that church. 

We went to another church with a larger building and congregation. They weren’t any better set up for a child that couldn’t hold his bottle, but at least there I could find a quiet room to sit alone with him and feed him. I missed a lot of sermons, but that’s okay. I’m a sheep that “feeds” myself an awful lot. 

By the time he was getting close to four, his coordination and strength had improved to the point that he could hold his own bottle. He was welcome in the nursery. What’s more, the youth program director had a daughter with Down Syndrome. Attendants and parents were told in no uncertain terms that no matter what, the youth program would always work to find the best fit for our son. 

When he was five, we had and then lost another child to the same genetic condition. That was a big part of getting the diagnosis. Then when he was seven, we had our perfectly healthy daughter. Until my son was nine, I used to tell other parents that every child comes with their own unique challenges and we all do our best. My tune changed when I had a few years experience with a typical child: y’all get it easy, so shut up and learn to listen. 

When our son was eleven, the youth director stepped down and a new youth director took over. The new youth director felt that there were too many accommodations for special needs kids. They started working to roll back those helps: kids were to be strictly divided up by age without exception, kids were expected to conform to expectations of their peers, parents were notified of needs according to what’s expected of the age group they’re in, etc. The nursery staff did the best they could to shield our son from these changes for as long as they could. It helped that at eleven our son was still as small as most six year olds. Still, some nursery parents were still concerned about the “first grader” in the nursery, and complained to the youth director, who made the “appropriate” changes.

We tried to work with the teachers and attendants to find a place for him for about three months. Then, the week after a vacation where a Manager of a pet store made my son feel welcome and accepted to a level he’d never experienced from a strange adult before, his own youth program stuffed our hyper-social child in an empty, dark classroom with a highschooler as his only company, and left him there in a dirty diaper. That was the last Sunday we were in that church.

I don’t envy the job of pastor. I understand that the pastor is trying to balance and juggle the concerns of the entire congregation. There are people with sensory concerns that can’t hear the sermon with my son chattering away. There are parents afraid that their baby will get run over or forgotten in favor of a larger child. As long as a pastor is not actually addressing these problems and making a place for my son, though, they forfeit the right to complain that I’m not and other parents like me are not attending church on Sunday. My son is now eighteen, but he can’t be left home alone for two hours while I attend church any more than an average four year old could. He needs the kind of care and supervision that a four year old does. If there’s not a place for people like him in your church, there’s not a place for people like me in your church. If you look around and you don’t see anyone like him in your church, that’s probably because your church has failed people like me already.

Now that my son is eighteen, potty trained, and a little better at managing his outbursts, one of the things that I enjoy is visiting a new church every week. I used to do that a lot before I had kids. We do have a church that is our spiritual home, though: Longview United Methodist Church. I don’t really identify as a Methodist. I prefer a little more theology and philosophy than what I get there, but current Pastor Allison Mattocks and former Pastor Rene Devanter were the first pastors to take active interest in the spiritual development of my son. 

Last week, at the encouragement and direction of Pastor Allison, my son was baptized. He wanted to show the world that he loves God and intends to follow him. He wanted to become a part of God’s family. It’s nice to have found a home church that makes that possible for him. 

I wish I could give better direction to those seeking help finding a church friendly to their disabled children from outside our local area. As someone that visits a bunch of different churches, there are patterns that emerge, but none are absolute. The first thing to look for is other disabled people in the church. The more disabled people there are attending the more likely they are to make room for our disabled children. Sometimes disabled people end up in a place that isn’t the best for them, and then they just don’t know how to get out of there. That’s rare, though. So that’s the first thing to watch for.

Another thing to watch for is people that interact with the disabled community. If there are a bunch of people there that know your kid from Special Olympics or work training programs, you’ll have allies against the people who don’t already know your kid.

The third thing to watch for is rainbow flags. I know this is going to disturb a number of my more theologically conservative friends, but if you don’t like it then make it not true. While it is absolutely true that there are unfriendly rainbow churches and friendly conservative churches, it’s been my observation attending a bunch of churches that there’s a positive correlation between the number of rainbow flags and socially progressive programs a church has and the positive reception and support my son will get from the church leadership. 

Christ told us that when we have an opportunity to help those that are less fortunate, that reveals what we really believe about God. (Matthew 25:31-46) If we help only those that can help themselves, then God will allow us to handle our own salvation, and that won’t go well for us. (Matthew 18:33) Be to those who need your help how you want God to be to you when you need his help. This goes double for pastors. (James 3:1) If you’re really telling someone like me that we need to attend church every Sunday, then understand that you need to either make room for us, or that you might be pushing us into the hands of your political and/or theological enemies.

Onward (2020)

In an alternate world of elves, centaurs, and fairies, technology has mostly replaced the magical arts. But when a father to two young children discovers that he’s dying, he returns to the ancient ways to create a way to see his sons once they’ve grown. The spell doesn’t go right, though, and the boys end up with a ticking clock: if they can’t finish the spell by sunset, they’ll forever lose the opportunity to talk to their father. 

Through the adventure, the oldest son Barely is guiding his younger brother Ian through all the necessary steps to fully restore their father. Due to circumstances, at the end of the day, only one of them is able to enjoy time with their father while the other distracts a dragon. Ian realizes that through his life, he’s always had someone to look up to: Barley. Barley, on the other hand, has had to figure out how to navigate the world with less direction and guidance. So Ian gives up the opportunity to see his father, letting Barley have this chance. 

This gets at something that people have struggled with since antiquity: what does it mean to be a father? We seem to have solved this on a biological level, at least. But on a social level, this is much less well defined. Partly this has to do with the unusual nature of human parentage: among the great apes, monkeys, and other mammals that share a bunch of physical qualities with us, fatherhood is biological only. An adult male orangutan generally makes almost no distinction between juveniles. An adult female orangutan generally shows a great deal of favoritism towards those juvenile that have come from her body. There are instances of females choosing a new juvenile, “adopting” it as her own. These seem to be a variation on the normal way of doing things.

If elves in that world did things like orangutans instead of like us humans, there wouldn’t ever have been a pair of sons seeking contact with a deceased father. Their “single mother” would be the only situation that anyone knew. They wouldn’t ever add the qualifier “single” to “mother.” When they heard us humans add that qualifier, they would ask, “as opposed to what?”

Right, wrong, or indifferent, common wisdom is that the reason humans do this is because our babies are so helpless for so long. Orangutan infants are climbing trees with their moms and seeking their own food without Mom’s help around four years of age. A four year old human is nowhere near ready to start providing her own food. Needing to provide so much for so long means that a mother needs someone to help provide for her and the child. The only other adult with a  vested, genetic interest in the survival and advancement of the child is the father. So says conventional wisdom, anyway.

Not all fathers are created equal, though. I’m fortunate that my father and two grandfathers were very involved in my early upbringing. I’ve known others that have not had that experience. When I was in my twenties, I carpooled with a guy that had only met his biological father a half dozen times or so.

Personally, I’ve never understood the fathers that avoid paternal responsibilities. I love my children. My oldest son is particularly difficult, but there has been no job that I’ve enjoyed as much as the last few years spending all day taking care of him.

Whatever else may be true about parenting, one thing I’ve learned is that it’s a team sport. When you’re looking to be a parent, build your team well. If you can, another parent and grandparents and such comes with certain social and systemic advantages, but if any part of that isn’t an option it’s good that we live in a world where a social worker and school administrators can become part of your team. Like Ian, children may romanticize the concept of a biological father, but hopefully also like Ian they will eventually learn to appreciate the people who fill that role, regardless of their biological connection or lack thereof.

Reply to Messiah Matters

One of my major goals for next year is to pull together my evidence that Matthew was written in Hebrew and start submitting it to academic journals. A big part of that is finding reasonable, honest people that read what I’ve got and push back against it. The most recent example of this is someone named Cruze Frank in one of the Facebook groups that I’ve posted to. Cruze helped me to see that I haven’t really addressed the Greek side of the debate regarding whether Matthew declared Mary a virgin or not. I deal with the Hebrew side, offering evidence in favor of it, but I don’t address the Greek evidence and offer any refutation. I will in the next update. (There’s a rough draft of that already, and it might come out in a separate post before then.) But I didn’t notice that because I’m a genius that can magically predict how people will respond to what I’ve said. I noticed it because it was pointed out to me. 

Jumping from the most recent to the oldest, the first time I publicly posted my evidence on Reddit a user identified as extispicy helped me to see that I needed to include pictures to show how the misspelling in Matthew 4:24 is more likely in a Hebrew tradition than any other, and that a rhyme I had identified in 8:30 wasn’t worth noting. My presentation as it appears today is better because of that response. Along the way, I’ve interacted with others on their own posts that touch on the subject and gotten responses. I can’t remember where, but someone had a post about the early history of the gospels and said that if there was an early Hebrew edition of Matthew it was now lost. I told them in a reply about my work on the Paris Manuscript and they replied that they couldn’t trust a manuscript tradition that didn’t come into existence until the middle ages. They compared the dates of the manuscripts I draw from to the Greek editions and preferred the older tradition. That led to including the relevant portions of my defense comparing the survival of Greek editions against Hebrew editions of the Old Testament. In that case, it didn’t convince the person because they also believed the Greek Old Testament to be authoritative over the Hebrew, but regardless whether I convinced them of anything my presentation is now stronger and better for their feedback.

Because of this, I’m always seeking out articles, blog posts, YouTube videos, or any other commentary that might have a point I need to address in my defense. The magic of a Google search still confounds me. I’ll search up things I’m sure I’ve searched for before and find ten year old articles that I’ve never seen before, and then try a dozen different searches with different terms that all lead back to the same old stuff I’ve seen a million times. I’m always looking for the arguments against, and don’t spend a lot of time on the arguments in favor. I don’t need help confirming what I believe, I need to find the weakest points in my defense and bolster them.

That’s how, a few weeks ago, I ended up on a YouTube video by a channel called Messiah Matters. The video was dealing with the claims by a couple of Messianic believers that the New Testament was entirely written in Hebrew. From what little I’ve gathered, the people running the channel identify as both Reformed and Messianic, and this video was something that they don’t do very often: a rare attempt at cautioning against the more extreme voices in one of those two movements. Most of their content seems directed more at daily living as a Messianic Christian or as a Reformed Christian or as someone living at the intersection of those. I don’t identify as either Messianic or Reformed, so they’re probably not going to make the budget allotment for my YouTube viewing time very often, but if you are one or the other or both then they might be helpful for you. I always appreciate people that are willing to caution against extreme voices in their own groups.

Most of what was said in the video was irrelevant to my position. I don’t know the people they’re responding to, and I think that the other three gospels were written in Greek. Every reason that leads me to believe that Matthew was written in Hebrew likewise leads me to believe that Mark, Luke, and John were written in Greek: the early church testimony, the internal linguistic evidence, and answer to prayer. So there wasn’t much there for me to respond to. There were a few points that they hit in the video that did touch on the things I say in my blog post, though. They hit the point that they needed a manuscript from before the middle ages a few times in their video, and they were convinced that the early church testimony was wrong about the original language of Matthew. 

I’m not an apologist for anything. I don’t care if they think that Matthew was written in Greek. Heck, I don’t even care if they think that the King James was the original penned by Matthew himself. (They don’t, I’m just making a point.) What I care about is the reasons they believe what they believe. And while they were very clear in the video that they believe an older manuscript is necessary and that the early church got the language of Matthew wrong, they did not tell why they believe those things. So I decided to ask them. I never know where a well reasoned, consistent answer will come from.

I always try to reply to these things as respectfully and carefully as I can. They don’t need to read my entire defense to address just these two points. I’m a busy guy, and I start from the place of assuming their time is every bit as valuable as mine. I do the same when someone replies to my blog posts: I carefully read what is said to me and do my best to address what they’re saying. Sometimes the best I can do is to say, “That’s an interesting point. I’ll have to think about that more.” Every so often, I’ll get a reply that doesn’t seem to relate to what I said at all and I have to say, “I’m sorry, I think I’ve missed something. Could you help me see how this relates to what I’ve said?” There are times when I have thought about a question someone asks, but I haven’t addressed it directly. For example, when someone asks me why Jesus never publicly identified as Christ I will answer, “It would have meant something different to the people of his generation (and Jews of today, for that matter) than what he meant. This is similar but not exactly the same as something I have a blog post on, Why Didn’t Jesus Call Himself God?” Very occasionally, I’ll get a reply back that this doesn’t really answer their question, and I’ll reply with something like, “You’re right, it doesn’t. Right now, I don’t have the energy to put into a full answer, and there are particular to the one that won’t apply to the other and vice versa. If you’d like to explore those particulars together, we can. Just let me know which ones you want to focus on. I’m sorry if I didn’t fully communicate that I didn’t intend that to be an answer, but the full answer to your question will follow the same basic outline as the other question, and it’s what I’ve got right now fully fleshed out.” Sometimes I don’t hold up to my own standard, and I’ll have a reply that seems hostile when I first read it and I’ll reply with the hostility that I read into it. When that happens, whether I get called out on it or if I notice later on my own, I always apologize. None of us are perfect, but all of us have the power to seek improvement.

So I replied to their video with this: 

I just stumbled across this video today. I’m in the process of trying to pull together my thoughts on why I think Matthew was originally written in Hebrew such that I can start trying to submit to academic journals next year. A lot of what you say here is connected to John and/or the authors you’re responding to, and I’m on your side that John was written in Greek and I don’t know the authors.

There are two points that I would like to push back on slightly just because they do touch on my arguments for Matthew in Hebrew.

First and foremost: are there any other documents from antiquity that modern scholarship has determined that the ancients were wrong about the language of composition?

Also, there seems to be a sense that the language of the oldest manuscript must be the language of composition or that the age of the manuscript is the primary indication of a manuscript’s value. How do you square that with Esther? Do you take Esther from the Greek as it is in Siniaticus? Or do you take it in Hebrew as we only have hundreds of years later and downplay the age of Siniaticus as far as value because you go to the original language first?

I found their reply hopeful.

Hi Shaun. I have written on this in much more detail. You may find this article of more interest. I speak directly to the claims that Matthew was written originally in Hebrew: https://torahresource.com/article/in-what-language-were-the-synoptic-gospels-written/

As I said, I’m a busy guy, and I don’t much appreciate an irrelevant response. So when they sent me to a blog post where they claimed you have “written on this in much more detail,” I rearranged my schedule so that I could get right to reading it. Sadly, neither question is addressed in the blog post. There is nothing in the blog post that says why the language of the oldest manuscripts should be preferred, nor is there anything that identifies another document where the ancients wrongly identify the language the text was originally written in. 

There’s a certain kind of masked disrespect that I cannot abide. If someone doesn’t have an answer, it’s okay to say they don’t have an answer, and it’s okay not to answer. But when someone pretends to have an answer and flushes a question towards a source that doesn’t answer it, that’s dishonest. It can be one of two things: either they didn’t pay enough respect to actually read the question, or they didn’t want to admit that they don’t know and lose their air of authority. In either case, it’s dishonest and disrespectful. I replied letting them know that this is how I feel. 

That was an interesting way to avoid my questions. Since your document does not address my questions at all, am I to take this as meaning you don’t have answers to them and just wanted to look authoritative by providing an unrelated link?

As I said, when I’ve been confronted with similar points, I’ve apologized. They did not. They decided to tell me how busy they are, as if I’m not busy.

No it means I have a job and you are not the most important thing on my list of things to get done. We usually respond to comments on our show the next week. I thought you might like to read the article I had written on the subject, but I didn’t realize you were not actually looking for resources.

Of course I’m serious. Why would I have read a document they directed me to and realized it doesn’t address my questions if I’m not serious? So I replied:

I am. But my questions are serious. I’m sorry, I also have a day job and also do not appreciate having my time wasted. If you had said “I have a document that discusses the Hebrew synoptics, but I don’t address those questions,” I could have budgeted my time accordingly. As it is, I feel lied to. I’m sorry that I got defensive but I wasted a break from my day job getting to what I was told address my questions only to find it didn’t. If I had known it didn’t, I would have put it in my to-be-read list instead of rushing through a break and eating cold lunch.

There were a few cordial replies, and then they said:

The article I shared with you addresses your first (and I believe both) question. The ancients did not believe the book of Matthew was written in Hebrew. The book that is referred to numerous times as the “Hebrew Gospel” or the “Hebrew Matthew Gospel” is clearly a different text than the Synoptic Gospel we have as my article argues at length. 

I would argue my article also addresses your second question. There are two points here, earliest manuscripts and their language are important, but Esther is clearly a translation from Hebrew, and the Gospel of Matthew is clearly a translation from Greek. The main point though is that there is literally no evidence that Matthew was first written in Hebrew. All evidence points to it being originally penned in Greek, which my article clearly supports.

Which felt like an attempt to change the subject. Instead of addressing whether or not another document exists where the language the ancients believed it was composed in and the language modern scholarship thinks it was composed in are different, they are trying to talk about whether or not the ancients were confused about something else. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were going for here, so I tried to ask clarifying questions:

I’m sorry, I’m not sure I’m following your first point. Are you saying that you think that when the fathers referenced Matthew in Hebrew, they were talking about the Gospel of the Hebrews? I just want to make sure that’s what you’re saying. If that is what you’re saying, are you interested in a dialog on that?

They didn’t answer that. That was suspicious. Often I’ve noticed that when people are actively trying to change the subject, they don’t like having it pointed out and will do whatever it takes to duck out of the conversation. But I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know them, and their time is valuable. Maybe they thought I was the one trying to change the subject. So a few hours later, when I had made it home, I took another stab at it:

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are engaging honestly and you think you’re answering my question. You’re not answering my question. But maybe you think you are. I’m going to try to explain why you’re not.

My question is not about the Gospel of Matthew. You keep explaining that you don’t think Matthew was written in Hebrew. I fully accept that you don’t think that Matthew was written in Hebrew. My question is this: are there any other documents where the ancients got the original language of the document wrong?

Fill in the rest of this list.

These are five documents where the ancients thought the document was written in one language and it was actually written in another language:

1. The Gospel of Matthew

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

I don’t care about the mechanism that they used to come to the wrong conclusion. You think they got confused about something. Fine. For the sake of the conversation, they got confused about something and gave the wrong language of composition just like in what other four cases? Or maybe the mechanism was different in those other cases.

I think you did address the second question, kinda. If I’m reading you right, if the evidence were presented that Matthew was written in Hebrew in such a way as to convince you, then the fact that a manuscript is after the 10th century would be meaningless.  That’s where I’m at, too. The difference is that I’ve spent three years pulling the evidence I’ve gathered together and I’m convinced. That’s a difference that’s fine, you just may want to adjust your rhetoric to match.

I found their reply very disturbing.

You are not asking your question correctly. You are asking if there are any OTHER documents the ancients got the language wrong on.

1. I am not aware of any documents including Matthew the ancients thought were written in the wrong language. But that would take a significant amount of investigation which I have not done. Someone like Dr. Wallace would be the person ask on that. 

2. From a linguistic perspective, we can usually tell which language a document was first written in, including Matthew and others. For instance Bezae has Latin and Greek side by side. But  it is a matter of debate as to which one was copied off the other. However, this does not negate which language it was originally written in. 

3. Your question does pertain to Matthew as this is the book we are talking about and from a linguistic perspective the evidence is quite overwhelming that the document was originally written in Greek. The evidence that Hebrew Primacy advocates usually turn to is later citation of a Matthew Gospel being written in Hebrew. However, scholars have shown that this argument is not solid and shows a lack of investigation on the part of those using it.

4. If you have new evidence that the overwhelming majority of scholarship has overlooked or never seen, please share.

They said that I asked my question incorrectly, then corrected how I should have asked it. Let’s compare:

First and foremost: are there any other documents from antiquity that modern scholarship has determined that the ancients were wrong about the language of composition?

Instead, they say that I should have addressed it this way:

asking if there are any OTHER documents the ancients got the language wrong on.

I don’t see the relevant difference. Which goes to show that my original two problems are still the two options in play: either they didn’t read what I said, or they were trying to distract and maintain an air of authority. In either case, it’s kind of rude.

This is where I made my fatal mistake. I replied to their comment with a link to my blog post. I forgot that YouTube automatically deletes links that have a link in them and that YouTube will start cutting off your replies after you’ve replied with a link. Since they had finally addressed my questions more or less directly, I didn’t expect them to say anything in their next video. But since they had said they would, I didn’t want to make a reply before that opportunity had passed. They didn’t address it the next week, but there was no need. Since YouTube has the problem it does with replies, I figured I would take this opportunity to finish up my conversation with them. If they are interested in continuing further, so am I! They can comment on my blog, where links will be accepted and nothing will be deleted without notice as long as it’s relevant. The reply that I sent them that YouTube wouldn’t accept was this:

4. As I’ve said, I’ve been pulling my data together for about three years in my spare time. The document is quite long. I understand if you don’t have time for it. That’s the reason I only asked the two questions: I was trying to be respectful of your time and focus on the things related directly to your comments. There’s also a TL;DR, but it leaves a lot out. (‘Cuz that’s what a TL;DR is.) You can find the main document here if you’re interested:

1. I’ve asked others with ThDs and people working on their doctorates in textual criticism. I’m active in a number of text-criticism and New Testament studies Facebook groups, and I started asking this question just about a year ago. At first, I just expected there to be a list and even a name for the category. We have a name for documents where we have the wrong author and/or time of composition: pseudepigrapha. I thought that there would be some kind of category of “pseudeglossia” and a list of ways that those things were studied or something. No one has yet been able to note any others. You just seemed very confident and I thought you might know of one. Just because no one has noted any before doesn’t mean there isn’t one and that you wouldn’t be the one to know. 

2. Yes. And a big part of making that determination most of the time is the historical understanding of what language the document was written in. If you open up any book of ancient documents and there’s a document that is worth commenting on the language, it will usually include a list of ancients that identified the original language if the ancients identified the language. It’s only when the ancients didn’t ever comment on the language that I’ve seen a book turn to other methods to determine the original language of composition.

3. The question pertains to how we determine what the original language of a document is, and that is relevant to the discussion of Hebrew Matthew. Last year I decided to try to find another document where the language of composition is disputed. They exist. For example, the Epistle to the Hebrews. But when that’s the case, it’s because the ancient testimony is also divided. In every case I could find, the normal way to determine what the language of composition for an ancient document was is to start by asking what the ancients said, then move on to other techniques only if the ancients are divided or don’t say. There’s a lot of stock put into the idea that the ancients got the language of composition wrong in the case of Matthew, but if this is the only time they got it wrong then that’s a very bold assertion.

You claim that I asked my question wrong. Was that a typo? Because right after you say that I asked my question wrong, the thing you put as what I should have asked is very nearly verbatim what I did ask. If it’s a typo, it happens to us all. If it’s not, I’m always looking to improve my communication skills. What about “are there any other documents from antiquity that modern scholarship has determined that the ancients were wrong about the language of composition” was worded incorrectly? And how is that substantially different than “if there are any OTHER documents the ancients got the language wrong on?” Is it just that I didn’t all caps “other?”

I tried to edit my reply to take out the link, but it was too late: YouTube had already stopped me from being able to reply to that comment any further.

As to their claim that the ancients didn’t think that Matthew was written in Hebrew, I find this to be an odd claim. Jerome’s preface to the gospels says, “I am now speaking of the New Testament. This was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception of the work of Matthew the Apostle, who was the first to commit to writing the Gospel of Christ, and who published his work in Judæa in Hebrew characters.” I think I kind of understand what Messiah Matters thinks happened. They think there was some other document (perhaps the Gospel According to the Hebrews) that the early church confused with Matthew, but even if that were true, Jerome was still very explicit that Matthew was written in Hebrew. We have a similar statement from Jerome in Lives of Illustrious Men where he says, “Matthew, also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek, though by what author is uncertain.” Jerome then goes on to say, “I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Berœa, a city of Syria, who use it. In this it is to be noted that wherever the Evangelist, whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord the Saviour quotes the testimony of the Old Testament he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint but the Hebrew.” So it kind of feels like if Jerome was trying to talk about another document, he didn’t do a very good job of explaining that. Of course, Jerome could still have been confused, but that still means that he thought the Matthew that we have today was composed in Hebrew. Even if there were some other document that was composed in Hebrew and the early church confused it with Matthew, it still stands that a Matthew in Hebrew that they identified was correlated with the Matthew that we have today. Of course, I have more examples than just Jerome in the main document, but I’m trying to keep this article focused on the point and find Jerome the easiest source regarding that point.

There is also a point in the blog post they directed me to that I would like to address. Their first two sentences under the heading “The Importance of the Debate” say “Some might think that this is a detail that really doesn’t matter at all, but the discussion hits on a much bigger issue, and that is the inerrancy of scripture. Since the earliest manuscripts of the synoptic gospels we have today are written in Greek, those that say it was originally written in a different language are essentially making the claim that we don’t have the words of the original manuscripts, just a translation of the words from original manuscripts.” As I’ve discussed in other places, I’m not a big fan of terms like inerrancy for exactly this reason: it turns into a “I hold to inerrancy better than you do!” competition. I don’t know where they stand on textual criticism, but in my case at least this complaint does not hold. I believe that we do have the text of Matthew in Hebrew, recoverable through the art and science of textual criticism, to the same degree as any other Biblical document. I’ve even noted that no matter a person’s personal favorite flavor of textual criticism, there’s a Hebrew text of Matthew to very closely match it: if you’re a critical text guy, George Howard’s text is going to feel pretty much at home on your shelf. If you’re a majority text guy (like me) then something more in line with the Paris text is going to feel better. If you’re a Textus Receptus fan, the Munster text will be just fine for your purposes. This kind of posturing “If you don’t believe that the Greek is the right text, then you don’t believe in preservation/inerrancy!” is just the kind of proclamation that feels like a power grab. It’s saying, “If you believe differently than me, then I’m going to say you’re not really a Christian.” Okay. Go ahead. Say I’m not a Christian. Watch me not care. I’m a Truthist, then. I follow what’s true, and the Truth himself came in the person of Jesus Christ. Whatever you want to call that, that’s what I am. These kinds of attempts to scare me into falling in line without evidence ring hollow.

I do hope that Messiah Matters really is interested in pursuing the questions related to the original language of Matthew. I hope that they can find weak points in my presentation. If I’m wrong, I hope they can direct me to the evidence that will show that I’m wrong. Right now, I have to say that the evidence is tilted towards them not being interested. Either they’re just not interested in pursuing this (which is fine, just because it’s my hobby doesn’t mean it has to be theirs) or because it would undermine their authority to admit they might have gotten something wrong. I guess we will see where things go from here.

Damsel (2024)

This is a movie that you’ve really got to watch twice to fully understand what’s going on. I’m not going to get into everything this movie has going on, so even if you haven’t seen the movie yet there will still be some surprises waiting for you when you watch this movie.

One of the points of this movie that gets laid bare is that the dragon slayers are the bad guys. They attacked the dragon unprovoked, they turned out to be cowards, and then they made a faithless deal that they intended to sidestep at every opportunity through sleight of hand and deceit, transferring their debt to unsuspecting strangers.

But does that automatically make the dragon the hero? Is the dragon doing the best she can by the people she meets? Does she critically examine the payments made to her?

But here’s the hard part of that: do we?

A blood debt is promised to the dragon, which the dragon slaying family circumvents by marrying a girl, mixing her blood with the dragon slaying family, then immediately feeding this new bride to the dragon. They deliberately seek out desperate kingdoms to “marry” their impoverished princess just so that they can control the terms of the marriage and break all contact with the family of origin. This is evil and underhanded and not in line with the terms of their debt.

How often do we stop to ask about gifts given to us, though? How often do we justify pirating a movie or game or textbook with the idea that “it won’t hurt them” or “they’re a big enough company to take it.” I’m going to say something that shouldn’t be controversial: the company behind whatever we’ve pirated doesn’t owe us anything. All the complaints that “they can take it” or anything similar are simple jealousy. Someone else “made it,” and that’s hard to take. Maybe there’s even something about the way that they made it that we’re specifically jealous of: they were born into money instead of working for it or they organized the ideas of others instead of creating ideas of their own or they marketed an idea that had failed for its creator. I can kind of get it, and there are areas where I would welcome and encourage improvement to existing legal protections for primary creators in a corporate setting. But saying that we don’t like the system doesn’t fix it.

Piracy isn’t the only way we do this, though. How many times have I seen people take the absolute limit of free samples, trying to get all they need for free rather than pay for it?

But it goes the other way, too. How often are we willing to pay for a service or a product that exploits others? How often do we buy shoes or clothes made in sweatshops or games made by companies that mistreat their employees? How often do we complain that prices are going up after an increase in wages? Or seek out the lowest price without considering what that means for the wages of the people that work there?

I sympathize with those that are living paycheck-to-paycheck, who don’t have the flexibility to “vote with their money.” I’ve been there. I’ve been making the difficult decision between paying the entire electric bill or buying groceries. It’s a hard place to be. I’ve also been in the place where it feels like the only reason people are friends with me is for what I provide, be that money or shelter or security. I’ve had people perfectly willing to stiff me for what they owed me because they thought I could take it. Once, I had a particularly good month at the same time three friends had unusually bad months. My wife and I talked it over, and loaned each of them what we could, because it was what we wish people had done for us when we were struggling. Then all three of them independently came to the conclusion that they couldn’t pay us back. We went from having extra to help to not being able to pay our electric bill, just because friends thought we could “take it.” We had budgeted such that we only needed one of them to pay half of what they owed to make it, and it didn’t work out.

Just because the other person is the villain in your story doesn’t make you the hero. Just because they’ve hurt you doesn’t mean you’re free to do what’s wrong. Just because they’re more powerful than you doesn’t give you the right to pick at them. When you find yourself looking to take advantage of a situation, take a moment to ask yourself, “Am I being the evil dragon, or the evil dragon slayer?”

When PhD’s Forget How to Read

Scholarly theological drama is fun. Sadly, I spend my time at the end of the theological reflecting pool that generally doesn’t have a lot of drama. Every so often James White or Frank Turik will say something that gets to Trinity Radio or Inspiring Philosophy, or someone from Ligonier Ministries will manage to say something controversial enough to be on the outside for a month or two. Overall, I tend to trust more reasonable voices, though, and being reasonable voices and sparking drama don’t typically go hand in hand. Sure, Michael Jones from Inspiring Philosophy has a minority position on a minority position regarding the Exodus, but he’s pretty clear that he knows it’s a minority and if you disagree he’s fine with it. And Leighton Flowers and Chris Date do their best to be controversial voices in the anti-Calvinist circles and anti-eternal conscious torment circles respectively. But they’re generally far too reasonable to actually be controversial. Recent events not being representative.

So I’ve been having a grand ol’ time lately. There’s a whole controversy going on dubbed BaalGate where someone said Calvinists that believe in infant damnation are like Baal worshippers that sacrifice their babies, and all the Calvinists blew up this corner of YouTube being offended.

I’m not Calvinist. As an amateur Bible translator, my enemies have always been King James Onlyists. Rarely have the words, “Shaun, why are you being so nice to the King James Onlyist?” been uttered. I have been caught in a few very riveting discussions trying to determine if being a King James Onlyist implies that someone is actually an NPC and therefore not really a moral agent. Not all King James Onlyists are Calvinists and not all Calvinists are King James Onlyists, but they do tend to cluster together and I have to admit I get a little bit of a giddy feeling when I think that some of the people caught in the crossfire of BaalGate might be King James Onlyists. So when people in my favorite corner of YouTube start saying that they think it’s time to move on, it does my heart good to see them not move on. I’m not a Calvinist, but my personal position on infant damnation isn’t entirely incompatible with the Calvinist view on the subject. (A little bit out of step, but not entirely incompatible.) So I probably should be on the side being offended. But to the degree it’s true, it’s true. (Zach Miller of What Your Pastor Didn’t Tell You in my opinion has the best explanation of what exactly is meant here.) So I don’t see the point in being offended. I tend to come at it more from the angle that God will do what’s right and will know what’s right, but in this life we don’t have the kind of data that we wish we did to determine whether that’s damnation or salvation for any particular infant. Including my own. But… I also don’t think we have enough information in this life to say for sure whether any particular adult will find salvation or damnation waiting for them either, so that’s more of a general statement regarding our ignorance rather than a dogmatic opinion on anything.

The problem with spending this much time in a corner of YouTube that’s not usually flooded with controversy is that it isn’t really well adapted to addressing more than one controversy at a time, though. So as much as I enjoy the drama of BaalGate, it kinda saddens me that another point of controversy that I think might actually have bigger ramifications has gone unnoticed.

On February 15th, Dr. Bart Ehrman was on Paulogia‘s YouTube channel to discuss perceived errors in Matthew. Some of the clips that Dr. Ehrman responded to came from a video on Inspiring Philosophy – Michael Jones’s YouTube channel. On February 27, Inspiring Philosophy did a live-steam reacting to Dr. Ehrman’s reaction to his own videos. This was then followed up by Dr. Kipp Davis in a livestream on March 6th titled Isn’t It About Time Inspiring Philosophy Learned Greek? That is kind of the stream I’m responding to. (More accurately, Dr. Davis said some things that got the voices in my head chattering and I’m responding to them. More on that later.) There was a little bit of follow up past that. On March 11th, Dr. Ehrman was on The MythVision Podcast to clarify his position on the passage, then finally on March 14th, Inspiring Philosophy did a livestream responding to the MythVision Podcast.

I have to budget my time, and my experience with Dr. Davis has been that he’s not very good at responses. That’s not to take away from the skills that he has. I love listening to his Reading Hebrew videos. He has a knack for languages that I envy. But his responses to others always seem to miss the mark. As often as not, when Dr. Davis finishes his response to someone, I end up thinking of the scene in Zootopia where Nick tells Judy, “if you want to look smart, answer their question with your own question, and then answer that question.” Far too often, I don’t feel like Dr. Davis is actually engaging the question or concern of the person he’s addressing. The first few times I saw it, I thought it had to be on purpose, but as I watched closer it was too consistent and too frequent to be planned. There was a consistency to it that feels familiar.

I’m hardly the right one to complain about that, though. Dr. Davis and I may have a bit in common in this regard. I have a whole host of thoughts that circle in the back of my head constantly. Most often, the filter that I hear the world through is a chaotic mess. It’s one of the big reasons I blog. When asked why I blog, I say, “it quiets the voices,” but they’re not really distinct enough to be voices. More like a constant stream of images and thoughts. It’s my superpower because I end up seeing things differently and from more angles than others, but it’s also my kryptonite because I can easily miss what’s right in front of me and obvious to everyone else. Blogging allows me to bring these thoughts more into focus, like playing fetch with an overactive puppy. My thoughts bounce all over the place and knock over all the furniture, and I can’t stop them, but if I can find a ball that’s fun enough to get them to chase it I can at least take them to the park and have some semblance of control over what direction they’re running in. So I want to be clear that I’m not criticizing Dr. Davis for this, simply explaining why I was originally apt to skip the whole conversation and why I then changed my mind.

Take this reply as a prime example of my own scattered approach. Dr. Davis’s primary concern is that he thinks that Michael Jones should learn Greek. I kinda agree with Dr. Davis that Michael Jones should learn Greek. Everyone should learn at least a little Hebrew and Greek. But I don’t appreciate the elitist “Only someone that knows Greek can know what’s going on here” attitude. Dr. Davis knows Greek, but somewhere along the line he seems to have forgotten how simple reading in any language works.

Because of my general concerns with Dr. Davis’s approach, I didn’t watch Dr. Davis’s stream when it first came out on March 6th. I didn’t need to watch an hour or more of stream to agree that more people should learn Greek. Then it was referenced a few times in the Reading Hebrew stream on March 7th, which I didn’t get around to until the 11th because I was elbow deep in proofreading my Masoretic Matthew defense documents. The things that Dr. Davis and Dr. Bowen were saying in regard to learning Hebrew or Greek didn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I made some time to listen to the previous stream. I added the previous video to my Watch Later list and finally got around to it March 21st. Now I understand why they weren’t making sense: they were talking about something nonsensical.

Okay, that’s probably a little unfair. I’m sure it makes sense to them. Dr. Davis probably just got high centered on an idea and forgot which tools to apply when regarding the problem he’s addressing. This is something that happens to the best of us. I love finding wordplays and puns in my original language studies and thinking about intelligent ways to translate them. But I have to remind myself that I would never personally publish a translation like that. I might buy one that did it for personal reference, but more often than not it’s the wrong tool for understanding what the text is saying and the right tool for recognizing the intelligence of the author. I’m sorry, Dr. Heiser, but I don’t think snakes are brass or spirit beings and being naked isn’t usually the smart thing to do. (All discussions for another day.)

And before I go too much further, I would like to address the elephant-sized popularity in the room: Dr. Ehrman. As a huge fan of nuance, I can’t help but be drawn to Dr. Ehrman’s approach. As someone with enemies in the fundamentalist camp (there’s a lot of King James Onlyists there) I find his criticisms of the fundamentalist side of evangelicalism a breath of fresh air. But I’ve had to (painfully) learn to be cautious about sharing or suggesting the works of Dr. Ehrman to politically motivated people. Sometimes Dr. Ehrman will say something along the lines of, “We don’t even know for sure that Jesus was buried in a tomb,” and I hear, “we should question everything. Always check your bias.” I take on the thought experiment of what the implications would be if the Apostles had embellished the story.

However, when I share these points with others, the trajectory of their thoughts is often different. Too often I’ve seen others jump from, “We don’t even know for sure that Jesus was buried in a tomb,” to, “Everything in the Bible is a lie and we need to chuck the whole thing.” I’m not sure which Dr. Ehrman really intends to convey. I’ve listened to lectures and debates where he seems to extol the value of the New Testament as a historical source, and I’ve listened to lectures and debates where he seems to minimize them as historical sources. I’m sure he has a definitive explanation out there somewhere, and I may even have heard it or read it already and I just don’t remember because I just don’t care. If he’s really much closer to being a believer than he sometimes lets on, then I find his questions and musings about what we do and don’t have and how things may or may not have happened to be interesting and insightful. If he’s really a money grubbing old miser that has found a way to keep his name relevant by flip-flopping on the issue and making vague claims that scare the fundies and King James Onlyists back into their shadows and caves then I still find them to be interesting and insightful… and furthermore good on him for setting a goal and keeping it.

Through the whole thing, at least in his public facing, Dr. Ehrman has been very professional and amicable. If he was offended by Michael Jones, he hasn’t shown it. The closest he came to showing offense was to suggest that Mr. Jones isn’t interested in the scholarly position during the MythVision episode. Anyone that’s watched Inspiring Philosophy knows that this isn’t the case. Mr. Jones quotes from numerous scholars (including the scholars that Dr. Ehrman suggested) in almost every video. Mr. Jones is normally slow to publicly adopt a view that has a minority or fringe following in the scholarship and/or tradition. (His view on The Exodus being the only exception I’m aware of.) But Dr. Ehrman doesn’t strike me as the sort that watches a lot of YouTube, and the clips he was shown cut out all the sources that Mr. Jones quoted from. I can totally see how, given the clips he was shown, Dr. Ehrman could get a wrong impression of Mr. Jones. And if Dr. Ehrman were really offended by being called “woefully ignorant” on the issue, he kinda deserves to be. Mr. Jones was speaking off the cuff and out of turn there, and said something that was blatantly false without considering what he was saying. Mr. Jones has even gone on to say that he was wrong to say that in his March 14. But Mr. Jones’s response was also in response to Dr. Ehrman saying something as though Mr. Jones was explicitly wrong even though Mr. Jones wasn’t. Dr. Ehrman was speaking off the cuff without giving it consideration, so I hope and believe that in a world where he’s exposed to the whole exchange, Dr. Ehrman will be just as contrite about his initial dismissal of Mr. Jones as Mr. Jones was in his March 14 stream. He’s gone on to double check the research in the area and correct his impressions, as you can see on the MythVision episode.

I understand not keeping all of it in your head at all times. I once had someone quote something to me, and when I told them I was looking for the original source to that quote they were surprised, because they had gotten to the original source from that quote from a link on my blog. I just hadn’t thought about it in a while and had forgotten that I’d already researched that. I don’t expect anyone to get everything right the first time off the cuff without preparation.

The passage that is being addressed is Matthew 21:7. “And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set [him] thereon.” (Corrected King James Version) In the Greek, the text for “and put on them their clothes, and they set [him] thereon.” is “καὶ ἐπέθηκαν ἐπάνω αὐτῶν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐπεκάθισεν ἐπάνω αὐτῶν.” This parallels Mark 11:7, where the parallel Greek is “καὶ ἐπέβαλον αὐτῷ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ.” Dr. Ehrman was bothered by this text because of the image of Jesus riding two animals like a circus act. Michael Jones points to scholars that suggest that the second αὐτῶν here refers to the clothes, not the animals. So according to the scholars Mr. Jones is following, it’s an image of the baby following the mother, the baby has some clothes on it, and Jesus is on top of the clothes that are on top of the mother. I’m not really going to weigh heavily into this except to say that I don’t see a strong reason to prefer either in the language or the grammar. The reading that Dr. Ehrman saw in the text is, to my understanding, a perfectly valid way to read the text, and the way that Michael Jones reads the text is also a perfectly valid way to read the text, and which a particular person got out of a cold reading with no prior input is going to tell us more about how that person reads than the text.

Which brings us around to how Dr. Davis is reading this text. Dr. Davis notices that this text is parallel to a section in Matthew’s source text, Mark. So to show Matthew and Mark’s texts side by side:

• καὶ ἐπέθηκαν ἐπάνω αὐτῶν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐπεκάθισεν ἐπάνω αὐτῶν.
• καὶ ἐπέβαλον αὐτῷ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ.

Dr. Davis correctly notes that there are similarities, and in particular Matthew and Mark start their last phase with καὶ ἐκάθισεν and then end with a pronoun. In Matthew, the pronoun is plural and in Mark the pronoun is singular. Dr. Davis also correctly notes that in Mark’s account, there’s only one beast of burden. The colt is mentioned, but not the donkey. Clothes is plural and can’t be the reference of the pronoun in Mark. This brings Dr. Davis to the conclusion that the plural pronoun in Matthew has to be the animals, since the corresponding singular pronoun in Mark is referencing the animal.

Before I go any further, I need to clarify what I am not saying. Having listened to Dr. Davis a few times in replies, I know all he’s going to get from this is that I’m saying Inspiring Philosophy is right and he’s wrong. That’s not what I’m saying. The grammar of Matthew is ambiguous. The context in Matthew doesn’t help. I’m not picking a side between Michael Jones and Dr. Ehrman on this. Frankly, the first time I read it I was on Dr. Ehrman’s side. The idea that it was the clothing Jesus was sitting on didn’t occur to me until I saw it in the Inspiring Philosophy video, but the idea also hadn’t ever bothered me enough to look into it in greater detail. (Either before or since.) I still haven’t looked up Mr. Jones’s sources on this, and I still find Mr. Jones’s presentation of this mildly underwhelming. I might be more convinced that this is the correct reading if I had Dr. Ehrman’s sense that this is a problem, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Matthew as I’ve been pulling together my reasons for thinking that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and I kinda feel like I’ve gotten to know him. I feel like he has a subtle bent towards humor. (Logs in eyes and treating the Pharisees like children with imaginary funerals and weddings and stuff like that.) So I have no problem with the idea that Matthew took a look at the prophecy, and then purposely rewrote the portrait of events to make it just a little funnier. And for the fundies in the room, maybe there really were two animals. Or not. I’m not the mathematician in the family so I’m not sure I’m qualified to count that high anyway. All cards on the table, I would be a little disappointed if Mr. Jones’s reading turned out to be the one and only right and true reading full stop. It feels like such a missed opportunity if that were the case, if my read on Matthew’s humor is correct. Even if Matthew intended to say it Michael Jones’s way, I like to think he left it ambiguous on purpose knowing that people would read it “wrong” and get a kick out of it. 

I’m also not saying that there’s no value at all in the kind of investigation that Dr. Davis is doing. The Synoptic Problem has turned out to be a bigger part of my overall theory that Matthew was written in Hebrew than I originally thought it would be, so I’ve been going through all the triple tradition parallels and comparing them in my free time for about the last year. It’s been interesting and illuminating, and an interested person can read the results so far in the most recent update of why I think Matthew was written in Hebrew and why I think Mark was written first. Comparing the documents to see how they’re related is a very valuable investigation as far as establishing how they were composed, how they are approaching similar subjects differently, and how they are building on each other. It’s also valuable when establishing historical probabilities. A lot of triple tradition material very obviously draws entirely from Mark, and material laws entirely from a single source has a lower statistical chance of being accurately preserved. So knowing what’s a triple tradition and what Matthew and Luke add to or tweek in Mark is a valuable historical study. Some people, motivated by a cartoonish understanding of inerrancy and preservation, get all bent out of shape about the differences in the Gospel accounts. While we can always wish for a higher historical resolution, where the differences are such that we know each of them come by their sources differently that increases their value for historical reconstruction.

This kind of study is rather on the useless side for doing grammar, though. You don’t figure out which word connects to which pronoun by going back to the source. The reason is simple: authors play with their source material, and always have. This is particularly true when the author doesn’t seem to expect his audience to be familiar with the source he’s adapting. We can see Matthew playing with sources in a variety of ways through his gospel, even when his source is the Old Testament. For example, Matthew uses a quote from Hosea 11:1 that refers to Israel and applies it to Jesus. There’s plenty of room to discuss what’s going on there, but one thing is clear: it is inconsistent to say, “Matthew applied this source to a different object than the source,” and then later say, “Now we need to go to the source to find out what object this pronoun applies to.” Matthew sometimes applies the object of a pronoun differently than his source.

We even see a change in subject when Matthew is borrowing from Mark. A very clear example of this is in Matthew 3:17 compared to Mark 1:11. Matthew has “Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα.” Mark has “Σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα.” The “ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα” is identical between them. The only change is the pronoun. So is God taking to the crowd, saying “Οὗτός ἐστιν,” or directly to Jesus, saying “Σὺ εἶ?” Of course, theologically it doesn’t matter, and we can throw the fundies their bone with, “maybe he said one, then the other,” but in terms of source criticism as a means to understand grammar, this shows that you don’t do that because Matthew plays with his sources, like all good authors in every time of history do. If we were to apply Dr. Davis’s method to interpret who God is speaking to, we would have to conclude that Jesus is the crowd. After all, Matthew only changed the pronoun here, and when Matthew changes just a pronoun Dr. Davis is convinced that this means it’s the same antecedent.

We see this again in Matthew 14:5 compared against Mark 6:19. In Matthew, “θέλων αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι” comes directly from “ἤθελεν αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι” in Mark. A slight change in the case of the verb, but the exact same pronoun. And yet, if we back up a verse in Matthew and a half verse in Mark, we find that these refer to different people. If we were to try to interpret this passage using the same technique that Dr. Davis uses in the triumphant entry, we would have to conclude that Herod and Herodias are the same person, because Matthew didn’t even change the pronoun when borrowing from his source.

There are other examples. Matthew 27:11 is parallel to Mark 15:2. In Matthew, we find “Ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἔστη ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ ἡγεμόνος· καὶ ἐπηρώτησεν αὐτὸν ὁ ἡγεμών, λέγων, Σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; Ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἔφη αὐτῷ, Σὺ λέγεις.” In Mark, we find “Καὶ ἐπηρώτησεν αὐτὸν ὁ Πιλάτος, Σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; Ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Σὺ λέγεις.” There are a lot of parallel phrases between these two verses: “καὶ ἐπηρώτησεν αὐτὸν ὁ” and “Σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; Ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς” and “Σὺ λέγεις” are all exactly the same. But there are key differences between them as well. In Matthew, we don’t get Pilate’s name at all. Pilate hadn’t been mentioned since Matthew 27:2. Contrast that with Mark, where we don’t get Jesus’s name. Only Pilate is mentioned. So which is the pronoun referring to in either case? To me, it seems silly to think that the pronoun refers to the same person in both cases.

The wrong thing to do is to look at Mark to figure out that Jesus is talking in Matthew, or to look up Matthew to figure out that Pilate is talking in Mark. You look to the surrounding context within the document the text you’re looking at resides to figure out who is talking. The reason, as I’ve shown, is that sometimes Matthew (like almost all authors) plays with his sources and puts the emphasis somewhere different from what Mark did.

A little closer to what we see in the passage in question comes up in the parallel between Matthew 9:11 and Luke 5:30.

• Matthew 9:11 Καὶ ἰδόντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι εἶπον τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ, Διὰ τί μετὰ τῶν τελωνῶν καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐσθίει ὁ διδάσκαλος ὑμῶν;
• Luke 5:30 Καὶ ἐγόγγυζον οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ, λέγοντες, Διὰ τί μετὰ τῶν τελωνῶν καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐσθίετε καὶ πίνετε;
• Matthew 9:11 (KJV)  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
• Luke 5:30 (KJV)  But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?

You can easily see that the quote is very close between the two, and it’s very likely that the original source for this was the same. So who is questioning the disciples? Is it just the scribes, or is it the scribes and the Pharisees? If we were to apply Dr. Davis’s method, it’s only the Pharisees. After all, the source seems to just mention the Pharisees. When you compare how Matthew Mark to his Luke uses Mark, we see that Luke is the more likely to paraphrase his sources. So if the way to determine who is referenced is to go back to the source and get the source from there, then the people quoted are the scribes.

My problem is the elitist attitude of Dr. Davis. He’s offended that someone that doesn’t know Greek dared to question someone that does. If the issue had a Greek nuance, something that didn’t translate well, I would understand that. What I found most telling about Dr. Davis’s presentation on the subject is that he stayed in English translations for his entire presentation. There was no point where he said, “Okay, but here we have to switch to Greek because you couldn’t see it in English.” Third person pronouns have singular and plural versions in English just like they do in Greek. Even if the nouns in question had a gender difference, that wouldn’t have been visible in Greek here, since the plural pronouns are in the genitive case.

I’m a nobody from nowhere, but I’ve gotten a particular bee in my bonnet that has led to spending far too much time comparing parallel traditions, so when I hear someone say something like “it’s very important here to look at where Matthew is replacing the pronouns because the singular pronouns in Mark refer to the animal. When Mathew replaces those pronouns with the plural all he’s doing is making the single change: one animal to two,” my knee jerk reaction is to say, “Don’t do that! That’s not how Matthew uses his sources! That’s not how anyone uses their sources! No one has ever thought that grammar works that way! If you want to know what a pronoun is referring to, you look in the text you’re reading, not the source it’s coming from!”

Dr. Davis’s attitude is, “I know something he doesn’t, so he must be wrong and I must be smarter.” Well, I knew something that Dr. Davis apparently didn’t: how Matthew uses his sources. Does this mean I’m smarter than Dr. Davis? No. It might mean I’ve got a better intuitive sense for how interpretation works in narrative and what analyzing sources helps with and what analyzing sources doesn’t help with.

It definitely means I’ve spent far too much of my free time the last year or so examining the minutiae of how Matthew uses his sources for a personal passion project. If I hadn’t, I would still have been skeptical of Dr. Davis’s approach, but I wouldn’t have known where to start looking for counter examples. I’d have silenced those voices by giving them a different problem to complain about, then blogged that. Given what I’ve been doing the last year or so, finding counter examples was easy for me. Should Dr. Davis put time into comparing every triple tradition like I’ve been doing? Well, kinda. Everyone “should.” But he’s got things going on and if it doesn’t immediately jump to the top of his to-do list I totally get that. From what I’ve seen, this just isn’t something he has an interest in or natural affinity for. That’s fine. His ability with languages is something I envy. It’s no slight on me to say he has knowledge and skills that I don’t. It’s likewise no slight on him that I’ve got this knowledge that he seems to have missed along the way. The slight on him is simply his inability to recognize that just knowing one thing doesn’t automatically make him superior to those who have put their studies in other places.

There’s a degree to which I agree with Dr. Davis. I would love to see Michael Jones learn at least the basics of Koine Greek. I’d like to see him get to a point where he can look things up on Blue Letter Bible and look at a English translation next to the source Greek and go, “oh, I see what’s going on.” If he didn’t get a two hundred word vocabulary, that would be fine. Vocabulary has always been the hard part for me. But for me, my desire for Mr. Jones to learn either Greek or Hebrew or both is an outgrowth of my desire that many more twenty-first century Christians would seek to read the Scriptures in their original languages. It’s not personal for me, Mr. Jones. You’re just another Christian out there kissing your groom through the veil, and that’s fine if that’s all the closer you can get right now. It’s a very thin veil.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

There is a lot to say about this movie and there’s no way to cover it all. On the one hand, I’m going to join the bandwagon that says that this could have been better. On the other hand, it’s pretty good.

Unlike every other movie in the Ghostbusters franchise, this movie felt more like a pilot episode to a television series than a standalone story. This isn’t to say that the other movies weren’t a part of continuing stories. I think the easiest to contrast in this regard is the first Ghostbusters movie. There is a sense in which The Real Ghostbusters cartoon really did use the first Ghostbusters movie as its pilot episode, but Gozer and the events of that movie rarely get referenced in the series. When they are referenced, it’s just in passing and not in the sense of continuing something that happened there. (With the very small exception of the episode Citizen Ghost, which addresses this gulf between the movie and the series directly.)

This isn’t much of a surprise. Gozer is gone at the end of the movie. If Gozer came back at the beginning of each episode of The Real Ghostbusters and was vanquished by the end of a half hour, it wouldn’t take long for Gozer to stop feeling like a god to be feared and more like an inconvenience.

This movie ends differently, though. The containment unit has been opened, and we see the very same ghost that they captured at the beginning of the movie chasing Slimer down the street. This could easily be a setup for the Spengler family to start hunting down the ghosts that the original crew had captured and hunting them down to put them into the new containment unit. Having a series that spins from here into a creature of the week episodic like The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo or the Lilo and Stitch series. One important difference would be that the Ghostbusters would be busting a combination of escaped, known entities and new, unexpected foes.

Such an endeavor would only be possible because of my favorite original Ghostbuster, though. Winston Zeddemore was a character that was criminally underused in the first two movies. He was my favorite in The Real Ghostbusters Cartoon series, though. Ray was too childish to take seriously. Egon was a stick in the mud. Peter was a walking vice list. But Winston was the son of a construction worker, grew up working class, and didn’t have a doctorate. He was kinda like me, but in New York. Whenever I would see a Ghostbusters or Ghostbusters II poster or advertisement without Winston, I felt like it was incomplete.

So there was something satisfying about seeing Winston elevated to a captain of industry, paying the way for Ray to continue his ghostly investigation hobbies, giving the Spengler family a place to live and supporting their expenses as they carried on the Ghostbusters legacy. Ghostbusting, as it exists in 2023, depends on Winston Zeddemore every bit as much or more than any other character.

I was a little sad that the character wasn’t fleshed out a little more. But only a little. I think a better subtitle for this movie would have been “The Dr. Ray and Phoebe Show,” instead of “Frozen Empire.” More time and script is put into following Ray and Phoebe as they investigate Garraka than the actual efforts to defeat Garraka. That’s definitely not a complaint. I enjoyed seeing what Ray has become in his old age and what Phoebe is becoming as she matures. If this really does spin off a series or even another movie, I hope that the next movie can put as much effort into exploring other characters. (Winston mentoring and inspiring Trevor would be an interesting take, especially given some of the lines that Trevor had in this movie.)

Overall, I felt like this movie shows that the team behind these movies listened to the fans. Slimmer’s absence was felt in Afterlife, and bringing him back felt like coming home. The Ghostbusters in some little town in the middle of nowhere isn’t really The Ghostbusters, and bringing them back to the New York firehouse felt like seeing an old friend. The new equipment, including the gunner seat and mobile traps, were awesome and I’m so glad they didn’t downgrade them. Puppets and not CGI is what made the original movies so iconic and I’m so glad they didn’t upgrade that. If anything, I felt like there might have been too much listening to us, and maybe if they hadn’t been so afraid of offending me they could have really impressed me. Even at that, this movie was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.